Monday, September 24, 2012

Fall Color Report

Saturday marked the official transition to Fall from an astronomical perspective, with the focus of the sun's direct rays passing over the equator as earth's seasonal axis tilting continues. Daylight is dwindling and temperatures are slowly dropping. Leaves will be the next thing to likely drop as Fall color season is just about upon us.

On my drive to the Shore on Saturday, there were a few pockets of reds on a few trees along the Atlantic City Expressway but peak color season is still four to five weeks away locally. In fact, very little color will be common around here for the next couple of weeks despite the increasingly cool trend in temperatures. According to The Foliage Network, a website that specializes in collecting user reports over the internet, the only places where moderate color is reported at this point is across northern New England and in the Adirondacks.

Our traditional "peak" time frame for Fall color is between October 20th and November 1st locally, with that peak moved up a few days north and northwest of the city (October 10th to October 20th along Blue Mountain, October 15th to 25th in the N/W burbs). There are some hints of Fall color showing up in some of the trees now locally but the current state of Fall color is not too far off of the norm. If we continue to experience normal to slightly below normal temperatures over the next few weeks, we should see our transition to peak color in four weeks in the city.

We'll update the state of Fall color on a weekly basis between now and early November -- and occasionally slip a picture or two of it in here or on our Facebook page.